Creatures of Darkness
The Darkened minor template Those corrupted by long residence in Tainted areas acquire these powers and flaws. If they are cleansed and lose the Darkened template, the powers and flaws go with it. Moral Inversion: The Darkened reverse their Virtue and Vice; they can still perform acts of Virtue, but these are shallow and meaningless, the moral equivalent of junk food, compared to the rewards that the Vice at the heart of their soul gives them. They may fulfill their Vice once a session, and regain all their Willpower when they do; while fulfilling their Virtue can be done once a scene, and restores 1 point of Willpower. Moreover, this inversion blights their consciences: the Darkened cannot buy Morality dots with experience points. They can still gain Morality with acts of great repentance and sacrifice, and if a Darkened's Morality ever rises above the rating he had when he first became Darkened, he is cleansed and loses the template. Tainted Heart: The Darkened know a Tainted area for what it is the moment they enter one, and can estimate the depth of its corruption. As an instant action, a Darkened may learn the Cold, Dark and Silent Taints of the place he's in, the location of the Taint's focus, and the Size of the area affected. Further, the Darkened can sometimes benefit from Taint. While their actions done with good intentions are penalized by the Taints as for the non-Darkened, for any task they attempt with an intent to harm, they add the appropriate Taint as a bonus to their dice pool. This bonus also applies to "twisted purpose" rerolls. For instance, in an area with 3 Silent Taint, a Darkened takes +3 to Social dice pools when he means ill, and -3 when he doesn't; and if he fails on a penalized roll, he may reroll with a +3 bonus to succeed with a corrupted result. Enter Darkness: When the Darkness Taints a place, some of that place's traits pass into the Darkness, giving it a little reality and structure. The Darkened can cross over from a Tainted place to its image within the Darkness, or vice versa. When trying to cross, a Darkened rolls the total Taint of the area + their Willpower - the highest Morality (or equivalent) of all people in the Tainted area or its image; if he has any Caligines he adds 1 die for each Caligo to this pool when going to the Darkness, but subtracts 1 die for each Caligo when coming from it. (The Darkened's Morality is not excluded from consideration for this roll -- if his Morality is highest among those present, subtract it from his pool.) :Dramatic Failure: The clumsy attempt weakens the Darkness' hold; subtract 1 dot from the area's Taints. :Failure: The Darkened fails to cross. :Success: The Darkened vanishes from or appears within the Tainted area. :Extraordinary Success: Reality trembles from the Darkened's passage. Every non-Darkened in the Tainted area rolls for corruption, as if they had spent 8 hours there. Umbrae The hold of the Darkness twists the Darkened out of their human shape, and the farther they slide from human morals, the more warped they become. This process of corruption is expressed with the Umbrae. When a Darkened loses a Morality dot from degeneration, he rolls his new Morality, and gains a derangement if he fails the roll, as normal. If he succeeds on the derangement roll, however, he instead gains an Umbra; the lack of subconscious realisation that what he did was wrong welcomes in the Darkness, letting it twist and sculpt his flesh. The end of this sculpting comes when (not if) the Darkened lose their last dot of Morality. Characters who have even one Umbra and reach a Morality of 0 die the next time they sleep. Their bodies, suffused with Darkness, decay swiftly, becoming variously desiccated, putrefied, or transformed to a black ectoplasm. Within a day, the corpse reanimates and becomes a new Darkling; this creature has all the traits of the Darkened dead (and the same character sheet) but, as a rule, is bestial, unable to form a connected train of thought. Most Darklings search out Tainted areas, haunt them, and try to drag others into them, or else stalk the people they knew in life. The most dangerous type of Darkened, though, are the Mnemosyne; these are Darkened who reach Morality 0 without gaining a single Umbra. Their bodies have not shifted to welcome in the Darkness, so they cannot become a true Darkling; they retain their lives and intellects, though badly twisted by the multiple derangements they suffer from. While not Darklings themselves, they can organize and direct the Darklings; and being utterly without scruple, they invariably direct their minions to commit acts of monstrous depravity. The following list of Umbrae should not be taken as comprehensive. Each Umbra confers a benefit, balanced by a drawback. Light is Dark The Darkened's eyes transform; he now sees by the absence of light. Complete darkness is for him what bright light is for normal people, and he suffers no penalty from low light. Drawback: Contrariwise, bright light is to him what complete darkness is for normal people -- the Darkened is blind when directly illuminated, and takes penalties for any task that requires looking at things that give off light. Darkened with this Umbra are forced into a largely nocturnal existence. Taste of Sin The Darkened may assess a character’s Morality with a Wits + Empathy roll. This is phrased in terms of the worst sins that the character has no problem with (so, for example, Morality 7 is “This character has no issues with non-lethal violence against his fellow man”). On an exceptional success, he also knows the worst action the individual has committed. Moreover, they gain +1 on all social rolls with people with Morality 5 or less, +2 on rolls with Morality 3 or less, and +3 with Morality 1 or 0... Drawback: ... and the consequence is that the virtuous are painful to be around. They have a -1 to social rolls against Morality 7, -2 against 8, -3 against 9, and -4 against 10. Moreover, they need to pass a Resolve + Composure at the same penalty to even talk to people with that high Morality; if they fail, they lose a Willpower point, as a sudden shame hits them. Dark Dreams The Darkness is everywhere there is sin or vice or absence, and some of this knowledge is fed into the Darkened's brain. The Darkened gains the Dream Merit, at 2 dots. On any night they use the merit, they do not regain Willpower. Drawback: There are three potential drawbacks for this Shadowing. This Shadowing can be taken multiple times, each time increasing the level of the Dream Merit by 2 dots, to a maximum of 5, and taking another drawback. #The eyes of the Darkened cloud over with cataracts that surgery can do nothing for. They gain the Blind Flaw, for which they do not get XP when it inconveniences them. #The taint of the Darkness seeps into their mind. They are at -1 to all later Degeneration checks #The dreams come unwillingly, and every night. As a result, the Darkened never regains Willpower from sleeping again. Hunger Means Nothing The Darkened is now immune to deprivation from dehydration or hunger. They no longer need to eat, nor drink; though they can, they gain no benefit from it, nor do they taste anything. Drawback: Quite apart from the fact that they can never eat again, the character wastes away. They are at a permanent -1 to all actions from the weakness and slowness of thought, they reduce their Health by one box, and look too thin, like a cancer patient, or (some more cynical Princesses might remark) a top fashion model. Cold Flesh The Darkened’s skin turns cold, as if they have poor circulation. They are now immune to all negative modifiers for low temperature, and will not suffer hypothermia or frostbite, no matter how low the temperature gets. Drawback: The sun’s touch is now painful against their chilled skin. They take 1 point of bashing damage every 5 minutes from direct sunlight, manifesting as severe sunburn. Completely covering up and use of strong suncream can reduce this to one point every 15 minutes. Sound of Silence The character’s hearing becomes exceptionally acute. They gain +3 to all aural based rolls. Drawback: So acute, in fact, that they are deafened by their own voice. They cannot speak or make any vocalisation above the level of a soft whisper. This, as might be guessed, makes day-to-day life rather hard. Animate Shadow The character’s shadow is thicker and blacker than it should be, flickering and waving in a way which almost, but not quite, matches their movements. It subtly guides the character’s mind in dark deeds, its movements almost dragging the character’s hands in the right movements. They gain the 8-again bonus in all Larceny, Subterfuge and rolls to hurt another physically. Drawback: The shadow reaps its toll. At the end of every scene that the character benefits from any of these bonuses at least once, they take a point of bashing damage. It can manifest as nosebleeds, old wounds opening, bruises blossoming unnoticed across the chest; always something that could be natural. Subtle Tongue Devious cunning becomes easy for the Darkened, as the nothingness and antipathy for form of the Darkness enters through the mouth. All Manipulation-based rolls are at +1; this is increased to +3 if the character is lying. Drawback: Correspondingly, forthright openness becomes hard. All Presence-based rolls are automatically reduced to a chance die; on a Dramatic Failure, the target becomes convinced that the Darkened is lying to them. Faceless in the Crowd The Darkness begins to subsume the Darkened's identity. People just ignore them. All individuals are at -3 to even notice them, and must roll Intelligence + Composure each time they want to remember them, failure producing a description of "Well... he... I think it was a he... was sort of tall? Maybe?" Mechanical and electronic records are not affected. Drawback: This applies to all rolls to notice or remember the Darkened ... not just their present life, but their past deeds, before they gained this Umbra. Childhood friends forget their names, old acquaintances don't recognize their faces, neighbors are startled on noticing them in a home they've owned for years. Caligines The Darkened can choose to twist themselves even farther, drawing on the Darkness for supernatural powers, the Caligines. A Caligo is a Merit, bought with experience points as normal; however, a Darkened cannot take any Caligo unless he has at least as many Umbrae as the Caligo's dot rating ... or has lost all his Morality. Darklings and Mnemosyne, being without Morality, can have any Caligo on this list. Learning a Caligo is a Morality 1 sin. Many Caligines' uses are sins against Morality at some level -- the descriptions note which.